


A Secret Chord

by missfeministfangirl



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Nightmares, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 21:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missfeministfangirl/pseuds/missfeministfangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thanks to geeknip on tumblr for the prompt!: Athelstan has what today we would interpret as a trauma-induced flashback and they try awkwardly to comfort him. He ends up feeling better not because they’re very good at it but because it means they care. I didn’t make it exactly a flashback, but there’s still ot3 hurt/comfort. Self-betad and all that. Title from the song Hallelujah</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Secret Chord

_The sky was full of huge black clouds blocking out the sun, massive dark shapes that seemed to move and swell with their own frightening intentions. No ray of light breached the unending wall of darkenss and as Athelstan stood on the beach at Lindisfarne he felt that truly the end was near._

_The waves rose fierce and high, towering over him and crashing with a sound that seemed to be ripped from the very bowels of the earth. They crashed onto the shore and the icy water surrounded him swallowing him up to his knees._

_Suddenly he felt something grab at his legs and it sent a jolt to his heart. He fought to pull back, he had to get back to the monastery, to warn the others, but whatever held him had a grip of iron. As the water receded he looked down and saw a man with long dark hair and blood on his face emerge from the water._

_Rollo_

_He screamed but it made no sound over the roar of the waves. Rollo pulled himself up, surfacing form the water as though he were part of it and grabbed at Athelstan’s throat, crushing it beneath his fingers. He tried to pray, but that only made it harder to breathe, made his throat hurt and his eyes water and all he could see was Rollo’s face, contorted in anger, running with blood—-_

Athelstan woke gasping for air. For a moment he simply breathed, taking huge gulps into his lungs. But then something caught in his throat; he thought back to the dream, thought back to that beach that he had known so well, that had been his home for as long as he could remember, and how it had been transformed into the stuff of nightmares.

He curled in on himself, buried his head in his hands. His hands ran over the top of his head, to the patch of stubble where his tonsure had been. He felt tears run hot and wet down his face.

It wasn’t until he heard a rustle from the doorway that he realized how much noise he must have been making. He looked over to see Lagertha and Ragnar standing looking down at him, both naked. It reminded him so much of when, a few nights before, they had asked him to their bed, he almost laughed hysterically. Ragnar’s face held none of the same boyish mischief and longing it had that night. Instead he looked uncertain, almost scared. Lagertha, on the other hand, had sadness in her eyes. She said nothing but walked slowly over to him, as though he were a wild animal that might flee at any moment. She knelt in front of him, stretched out her hand and ran it through his hair. The touch felt so comforting, so tender and somehow so intimate that Athelstan could not help but lean forward into her. He forgot that she was naked, that he should be embarrassed, and simply felt the warmth of her skin. He buried his face in her neck and breathed in the slightly spicy sent of her hair and her sweat.

He heard footsteps and then felt Ragnar at his back. The norseman knelt and enveloped him from behind, his large hands over his still rapidly beating heart.

When he had first awoken he had felt a painful stab of homesickness. But what was waiting for him at home, a barren island, a pile of sand in the cold ocean? Even if he could have traveled back in time, back to when the monastery had been more than a pile of ashes, all that would have been there would have been his brothers, solemn faced men, cold, who had never shown him anything but distant, godly love. He could not even remember the last time he had touched someone skin to skin as he was touching Lagertha and Ragnar now. He didn’t realize how much he had craved it until now, how much he had needed it.

Slowly his two captors (although that word was becoming more and more complicated and confusing) rose with him between them. They said nothing, but Lagertha tugged him out of the door, and towards their bed. Lagertha settled underneath the furs again and when Athelstan hesitated, Ragnar laid his hands on either side of his hips, nudging him gently forward. He gave in.

He lay down and curled towards Lagertha while Ragnar slid in behind him. Their limbs intertwined with his in a way that felt as natural as a flower turning towards the sun. Surprisingly, he felt himself smile.

“Is this how all of your people treat their slaves?” he murmured.

He felt Lagertha giggle and Ragnar huff out a breath against the back of his neck. The bigger man curled his arm tighter around Athelstan.

“Go to sleep, priest.”


End file.
